Amedia

inTrade, Wholesale and Distribution

I’m really satisfied with SAP BPC. The solution is easy to learn and is MS Excel-based, which all accountants already know how to use. [...] The shared system has really simplified our monthly and yearly budgeting processes.

Karen Langballe, ERP Director, Amedia

Amedia is Norway‘s largest publisher of local media titles and one of the country‘s leading media companies.
The Group publishes 65 newspapers, with a total of approximately 1.9 million readers.

Herausforderungen und Vorteile

Challenges

Changing people’s habits takes time. A new IT solution is a change project

Solution needed to cover 116 subsidiaries and a flexible company hierarchy. It was challenging to implement and a challenge to maintain

Amedia is a highly decentralized organization, which is challenging in itself. To ensure common processes, the solution has to be managed centrally

Benefits

Puts the group’s management in control

MS Excel-based, which everyone knows how to use

Flexible hierarchy structure

Acceptance of different consolidation hierarchies

Consolidation possible for subsidiaries and different business areas

Solutions

SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)

Agresso accounting system

Template-based Excel files

Amedia, Oslo, Norway

Prompt, precise consolidation of accounts: A user-friendly standardized solution that provides increased control

Mastering the New Reality of Finance

About the Project

Amedia is part of a competitive sector where demands on precision are high and new competitors such as Google and Facebook are making their mark, competing for advertising revenue all the time. This makes the need for relevant and accurate accounting processes that are readily available – across different business areas and subsidiaries – more critical than ever.

Amedia was the result of a merger between A-pressen and Edda Media in 2012. The new group decided to keep using Agresso as their accounting system, which was already being used by one of the parties. SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation), meanwhile, was chosen as the group‘s new solution for budgeting and consolidation. itelligence‘s consultants ensured good data integration between Agresso and SAP BPC, which meant there was no need to convert any data.

This new solution is securing Amedia‘s access to all financial budgets and forecasts compiled for their subsidiaries, and also ensures it meets all operational requirements prescribed by law. After the merger, it was important that there was one collective system so that managers could get the necessary overview of and proximity to the new joint accounting system used across the group. The roll-out of SAP BPC has made their monthly and annual budgeting processes much more straightforward.

One major advantage of the SAP BPC solution is that the demanding hierarchy of the company can be monitored and maintained. The solution has paved the way for various different consolidation hierarchies, which is important for maintaining the quality and keeping an overview of the accounting system.

SAP BPC is configured and maintained centrally and used by all accounting personnel across all the regions. With 65 newspapers in their portfolio, it goes without saying that collective templates and pooling of account numbers have been important to the group. All master data now work off the same basis, meaning for example that ‚subscription‘ accounting processes now use the same account numbers. One solution for all, with everyone using the same standardized reports for their business.

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